07 November 2015

427: What Moving to a New Country Revealed about Me

Today I realized, or more so finally admitted to myself, that my previous stability the last few years was completely dependent upon my environment and the routine I had set up for myself. Before I moved to Canada – I was pretty sure of myself in terms of my process – what I was doing, where I was going, and overall, the experience of myself. I was certain I could trust myself and that I would do whatever was necessary to be done to support myself within my process (that which I face within my life).

Though since moving to a new country, a new environment, starting a new job and overall completely uprooting myself from ‘what I know’, I have felt a collapse within myself, like I have completely failed. This is due to the experience of myself being all over the place. I have faced so many new points, and faced myself essentially in new situations, and I was not prepared to the extent I thought I was. It’s been more than 6 months and I can finally say that the stability I had created for myself in Minneapolis was completely dependent on that comfort zone – of the city I had always lived in, of the job I had for more than 10 years, of the people I would see every day. Take all that away, do “I” as the self-stability, stand?

No. That is what I have found.

So this is not to go into shame or self-pity, although that has been part of my experience since being here in Canada. The point is to admit it to myself – to be self-honest about it – is the first step to directing/changing it.

I wasn’t allowing myself to see that I had created a dependent relationship towards my environment for my stability. I ‘needed’ that environment to be stable in a way. Because once I was removed from that environment, everything changed within me. I changed – I, from my perspective, fell. So I was not standing on a solid foundation. I was standing on a false foundation that was held up by an environment I had become so accustom to.

And so before admitting this to myself, being self-honest about that, that I had created a stability that would not stand the test of time, that was in fact separate from me, I was thinking I was a failure, a fuck up – and that ‘this place’ was the problem. This place meaning where I am living now, and the work I am currently doing. I thought ‘it’ was to blame, when in truth, in reality – it is me. I was not my own self-stability – I was not standing stable within myself.

It’s like the ever-supporting analogy of the eye of the tornado/storm. To be self-stable is to be the eye of the tornado. No matter what is going on around you, and outside of you, you remain quiet, here, present, stable. Though as the tornado manifested of me moving countries and getting a new job, and living in a new place – the eye crumbled and I was enveloped in the chaos around me. Though the chaos was more within me – though yes, physical changes were happening – I had many reactions to the changes.

Going back to the moral of this story… self honesty. I could not admit this to myself before, that the stability I experienced prior to moving to Canada was not self-created, and self-sustained – it was dependent on ‘where’ I was. I couldn’t admit this because it would call for me to face the fact that what I experienced before I moved was not real… that I did not actually create a solid foundation within myself, that I actually had deceived myself in believing that “I had changed who I am within my environment” – when really, all I did was learn to create a routine I was comfortable in. and now I would have to do it over/do it again.

Here though a window of opportunity. For me to actually now, seeing and realizing, and admitting it to myself, I am able to actually change it and create the stability within me. To realize that stability does not come from where I live, or with whom I’m around, or where I work… that it must in fact come from me, so that no matter where I end up, I am here. The ‘I am’ being the self-honest, self-awareness of who I am as Life.

So rather pointing the finger of blame, or of feeling like a failure, and judging myself for ‘fucking up’ due to a vast difference in my experience over the past 6 months, rather get to a point of self honesty. What changed and why? Admitting to oneself that one is in fact responsible for ALL that goes on within oneself and the cause/source/origin is within self to find and correct.